Institute of Directors calls for employment law reform in Queen's Speech,
including the controvertial proposals from the Beecroft Report.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) has set itself on a collision course with business secretary Vince Cable, as it called for changes in employment law to be introduced that he has already branded “complete nonsense”.

The IoD, which counts 35,000 directors of companies as its members, thinks a bill needs to be put forward in tomorow’s Queen’s Speech to bring “compensated no fault dismissal” into law. This measure was first proposed by Adrian Beecroft in 2011 in a report for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

The IoD has also proposed a three-month notice period for employees who do not wish to return from maternity leave and a “too big to strike bill” to tackle “increasing trade union militancy”.

“Through a series of mergers, the trades unions have become divorced from their original purpose, no longer representing workers from specific industries and able to cause disruption beyond the site of the original dispute,” the IoD argued. “The Government should give powers to an organisation like the Competition Commission to investigate union mergers.”

The IoD also wants a bill introduced to stop the “over-zealous” implementation of EU directives in what it describes as the Coalition’s “last chance to unleash business”.

A “Midas bill” needs to be introduced to reverse the “gold plating” of EU directives, the organisation argues. It points out that successive governments have implemented EU directives in an over-zealous manner, resulting in a greater burden on business than necessary. These rules need to be stripped back to the bare minimum, it says.

“This is probably the Government’s last chance in this parliament to announce new legislation to boost businesses and the economy,” Simon Walker, director general of the IoD said. “Nearly half of businesses think that regulation is holding them back. Ministers should seize this opportunity to tackle the issue head on.”

The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has also outlined what it would like to see included in the Queen’s Speech. The pressure group has urged the government to drop a plan for high speed rail 2, which it argued would result in spending of “well over” £1,000 for every family in Britain. “Many towns would see a worse service under current plans and the economic case is based on flawed assumptions,” the TPA said.

The organisation also wants plans to enshrine a commitment to spending 0.7pc of GDP on foreign aid into law scrapped and the introduction of a bill to abolish national insurance and merge it with income tax. The TPA is also against plans for minimum unit pricing on alcohol and wants a bill to give voters the right to recall MPs who have let them down.